I like technology applied to music… but I remain faithful to the black and white keys… (you know, pianists are too poor to make the keys of the same color 
). I imagine me, poor with technology, trying to play Monk with a controller like this… 
Okay - I was watching the European Broadcast Union’s New Year’s Day Concert from Viena and my fingers were idle… so I wrote a plugin that I have initally called, “Chordulator”. It is fairly simple at the moment and only a proof of concept. Pressing a key with the right hand (above the split point) will trigger a chord, based on a chord selection made by pressing a key with the left hand (below the split point). This isn’t a feature rich as the controllers mentioned above but it may be a useful plugin that we can expand to provide functionality our users want.
I have only added three chords so far: major triad, minor triad and Mystical chord. This is just to prove it works. I haven’t yet considered the various mechamisms described above.
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I withdraw my comment above; maybe you can be expected to implement every good idea we have!
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If something looks fun then I might just be tempted to play… And I needed the fun after that awful stable release fiasco!
I have improved the plugin and added another one so now we have:
Chordulator - Sends MIDI chords when a key is pressed with the right hand. The chord type is defined by which key is pressed with the left hand.
TonalChords - Sends MIDI chords when a key is pressed with the right hand. The chord type is defined by which key is pressed within each octave and are tonal harmonically related. The key of the chord is defined by which key is pressed with the left hand.
I added features like adjusting the set point (default to middle C), enable latch so you don’t need to hold down the left keys and increased the chords to all the ones that I (well, machine learning) could think of. There are only 12 chords available for the tonal plugin and I am not sure whether the default layout is appropriate. Anyone who wants to give feedback…
I reckon these plugins would benefit from being in series with an arpegiator. Who will be the first to post some music using these?
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Here’s another chord thing called HiChord on KickStarter. It is nice and pocket sized. I’m just posting it here to make this list-topic as complete as possible. I feel with Chordulator and TonalChords (above, thanks @riban ) and more, Zynthian has this genre covered! But if you really want a dedicated pocket size device and don’t mind the ~200 dollar price:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hichord/hichord-pocket-chord-synthesizer?ref=discovery_category%3Fref%3Ddiscovery_category
…and suddenly people find out every song sounds the same like the others…
A real keyboarder can easily play whatever chord, it is just a matter of a little bit of training. And maybe musicality.
These chord-maker-things are so useless! They just make people think they are musicians.
People buy a bunch of these devices, but he they are not able to play a single expressive or emotional melody. So poor.
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I disagree!
There are virtuoso musicians who have spent hundreds of hours learning how to play their instrument. They are a fantastic asset to the world. I love and envy these people’s dedication and aptitude and we are all enriched by their presence.
There are composers who create wonderful pieces of art for perfomers to present to the world. Sometimes they poses the skills to render their imagination with instruments and sometimes they rely on others to do so. Without this talent, we have no music!
There are musicians who compose and/or play instruments for their own and for other people’s entertainement. They may not be as technically talented as others but they enjoy what they do and often, others enjoy it too.
We each use the tools that suit our form of art. That may be an acoustic stringed instrument or a bank of electronic gadgets - often somewhere inbetween. If a tool exists that allows someone to produce the art they want to produce then this must be a good thing.
Tools may allow an artist to do things that they otherwise couldn’t, not necessarily through lack of talent or inspiration. The tool may enable a user with physical or mental constraints, e.g. someone may use a chord generator by hitting a pad because they lack the physical ability to reach and interact fully with a keyboard. Someone may compose a complex arrangement they wish to play themselves but lack the quantity of limbs or digits, e.g. the piece requires 3 chords and a melody which they may trigger with three fingers from one hand, releasing the other for the melody. Someone may want to informally learn some music theory and may be informed by a chord mechanism that allows them to experiment without training that they may find intimidating or outside the scope of their artform. There may be an art installation where people interact by triggering events, e.g. by pressing or strumming or hitting things and those events create pseudo ramdom notes, chords, articulations, etc.
Zynthian provides many tools for many users who follow many workflows. The more tools that we provide, the wider the group of artists exploring their talents - wherever they lay.
I speak as a rather limited musician who benefits from such tools. Although I wrote some of the chord plugins in zynthian, I don’t often use them but am glad they are available if necessary and pleased they benefit others who may find better uses than I can imagine.
In many ways, the kind of uses I describe may actually result in expanding the soundscape. If a user can trigger various chords without considering music theory, they may create the next new thing.
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I use a drum machine.
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As
But I’m waiting for a generative Puredata patch to be integrated into Zynthian for feeding an endless soup.
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